From the archives: Joshua and Violence (Part 4) – Two Stories of ‘Conquest’ by Matt Lynch

“The battle of Jericho exerts a powerful hold on the imagination of Jews and Christians. It shows up in most kids Bibles, and thus from an early age shapes opinions about the book’s theme and tone before most even read the long version. Assessments of violence in Joshua often proceed as if what happened in Jericho was representative of the book, as if Jericho was the beginning of a story of unrelenting genocide. However, I think that’s a mistake.

As I suggest below, I think there are two quite different stories of conquest in the book. The story of Jericho belonged to only one tradition of story telling. Another existed, and it needs to be heard.

But before looking at how this other story sat alongside the first, let’s look at how earlier books set our expectations for two stories of conquest.“